Neural Circuit Function Research Core
Core Director: Hitoshi OKAMOTO (M.D., Ph.D.)
| To understand brain as a multi-stratified system from the levels of molecules, genes and cells to the level of integrated system, it is essential to reveal how neural networks function. Based on the accumulated knowledge at the molecular levels as to how neurons change their strength of connections with each other, and how neural networks are established by themselves, we will develop technology to visualize the dynamic behaviors of molecules and cells in the live brains, and to arbitrarily regulate the activities or wiring of specific parts of neural circuits by extensive use of the most modern molecular genetic manipulations. Using these tools, we will reveal the mechanisms by which neural circuits execute complex functions which can never be realized without synergistic interactions of individual neurons or individual molecules within them. By complementary efforts both in experiments and theory, we will try to achieve the ultimate understanding of neural circuit mechanisms for the brain's superb capacity to control our cognition, interpretation, memory and behavior. |
Principal Investigator
- Hitoshi OKAMOTO
- Core Director
- Laboratory for Developmental Gene Regulation
- Laboratory for Neurobiology of Synapse
- Laboratory for Motor Learning Control
- Laboratory for Neural Circuit Theory
- Laboratory for Cortical Circuit Plasticity
- Laboratory for Circuit and Behavioral Physiology
- Laboratory for Memory Mechanisms
- Laboratory for Behavioral Neurophysiology
- Laboratory for Circuit Mechanisms of Sensory Perception
- Laboratory for Local Neuronal Circuits
- Laboratory for Molecular Mechanisms of Thalamus Development
- Laboratory for Neural Computation and Adaptation
- Laboratory for Synaptic Plasticity and Connectivity
- Laboratory for Neuron-Glia Circuitry
- Laboratory for Neural Circuitry of Memory
- Laboratory for Systems Neurophysiology
- Research Unit
- Semyanov Research Unit
- Launey Research Unit